Westwood One News To Cease Operations

Cumulus Media has notified all affiliates of its Westwood One News that the service would be shutting down on August 30.

In a cancellation letter to stations, the company wrote, "Due to the extraordinary circumstances in the current marketplace, Westwood One News will be ceasing operations effective on Sunday, August 30, 2020, following the 11:30pm ET newscast."

"As you can imagine, this was an extraordinarily difficult decision not only given the strength and quality of our award-winning news product, but also the depth and experience of the impeccable Westwood One News team," Westwood One President Suzanne Grimes stated in a memo.

The memo further adds that “Westwood One remains enthusiastically committed to our strong portfolio of talk personalities including Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, Michael Savage, Jim Bohannon, Chris Plante, Dan Bongino, Clark Howard, and Red Eye Radio.”

Westwood One News Executive VP Bart Tessler added, "Thank you to our 962 stations and the Westwood One Affiliate Sales team. It has been a pleasure leading this division of great broadcast journalists. In just 5 1/2 years, Westwood One News went from launch to winners of leading industry honors, including Edward R Murrow, Sigma Del Chi, National Headliner, New York Radio Festival, and Golden Mike awards. We are very proud of the coverage and programming we provided, as well as your support and participation in our success."

Westwood One News launched on January 1, 2015 and operated by Westwood One through its parent company Cumulus Media.

In its notice of cancellation, Westwood One didn’t tell affiliates it is assigning their contract to AP and that they will be transitioned from a Westwood One News station to an AP station at the end of August. Instead, WWO sent an official notification of cancellation based on a closure of service. The affiliates essentially have seven weeks to pick up the AP replacement product or affiliate with another network, InsideRadio reports.

News networks are expensive operations and Westwood One parent Cumulus Media may have decided it no longer sees a strong margin in the space during an extremely challenging year for all ad-supported media.